For Japan, the level of police presence is unusual, with police barricades, checkpoints, guard posts and police patrols almost everywhere in the city.
However, this is the makeover Yokohama has undergone as it hosts delegations from the 21 APEC countries for the annual leaders’ summit.
“I’ve never seen such a heavy police presence at any single event. I was at the APEC meeting in Peru [in 2008] and the security measures weren’t as tight there,” a cameraman from a Hong Kong-based TV station told the Taipei Times after passing through security checks to reach the international media center.
Photo: CNA
All vehicles — including the official APEC shuttles reserved for journalists — can only travel as far as a heavily guarded parking lot about two or three blocks away from the venue. Reporters then have to travel by foot to the center, under close police monitoring.
No photographs are allowed on a footbridge leading to the building where the venue is located.
Upon entering the building, reporters must scan a pre-issued press pass for an identity check, put his or her belongings through an X-ray machine, walk through a metal detector and, if officers deem it necessary, be searched from head to toe.
Security does not only apply to the main venue and the Pacifico Complex, which contains the meeting centers and hotels where the delegations and national leaders are staying, but covers the entire Minato Mirai 21, a newly developed district of about 186 hectares with skyscrapers, luxury hotels and large shopping malls. The entire area is closed to unauthorized people.
Journalists, delegates, local residents and people who work in the area must all obtain permission to enter Minato Mirai 21.
Although security measures are not as tight in other parts of the city, in Minato Mirai 21 the police are on guard 24 hours a day at most of intersections in the area.
According to local media, as many as 20,000 police officers from across Japan were mobilized to maintain security around the city of about 3.6 million people.
Security officers are also rather particular about where people can be in the presence of delegates and heads of state.
Many Taiwanese reporters have complained of being pulled or pushed by police when they were covering a visit by Lien Fang Yu (連方瑀), the wife of former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰), to Chinatown yesterday afternoon, simply because they were lagging behind another group of journalists.
Lien Chan is President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) special envoy to the APEC summit, as Taiwanese presidents are barred from attending because of opposition from Beijing.
For the scheduled meeting -between Lien Chan and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), media representatives will not be allowed to wait in the lobby of the meeting venue, which represents a departure of sorts from standard procedures.
“I know that most of time the media is allowed to stay in the lobby to see if you can get some comments from national leaders after their meetings, but Japanese police said ‘no’ this time,” a Government Information Office official told reporters yesterday.
“We’re only allowed to take 15 reporters into the meeting venue for the first part of the meeting that’s open to the media. Afterward, we just have to take everyone back to the media center,” the official said.
Finally, all those security measures are also creating headaches for local residents or anyone who happens to be there this week.
A Taiwanese living in Tokyo on a visit to Yokohama surnamed Yang (楊) said many store owners in Chinatown — one of the city’s main tourists attractions — have complained that business has dropped as fewer people were coming to Yokohama.
“Usually, the streets in Chinatown are crowded, but now, it’s almost empty,” Yang said.
A shopkeeper in the area said business had dropped at least 30 percent since senior-level APEC meetings — and the attendant security — began on Wednesday.
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
ON PAROLE: The 73-year-old suspect has a criminal record of rape committed when he was serving in the military, as well as robbery and theft, police said The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved the detention of a 73-year-old man for allegedly murdering three women. The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the death of a 71-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙). The Kaohsiung City Police Department yesterday also unveiled the identities of two other possible victims in the serial killing case, a 75-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃), the suspect’s sister-in-law, and a 75-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), who is not related to the suspect. The case came to light when Chao disappeared after taking the suspect back to his residence on Sunday. Police, upon reviewing CCTV
TRUMP ERA: The change has sparked speculation on whether it was related to the new US president’s plan to dismiss more than 1,000 Joe Biden-era appointees The US government has declined to comment on a post that indicated the departure of Laura Rosenberger as chair of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). Neither the US Department of State nor the AIT has responded to the Central News Agency’s questions on the matter, after Rosenberger was listed as a former chair on the AIT’s official Web site, with her tenure marked as 2023 to this year. US officials have said previously that they usually do not comment on personnel changes within the government. Rosenberger was appointed head of the AIT in 2023, during the administration of former US president Joe
RSS